Tag Archives: action
Obama Delivers Renewed Renewable Energy Support For The US
27 June 2013 One of the most powerful people on Earth, US President Barack Obama, gave a passionate address on climate change on 25 June during a visit to Georgetown University in Washington DC. Obama wants to cut carbon pollution and reduce global warming and told an audience of students and visitors: ‘I refuse to condemn your generation, and future generations, to a planet that is beyond fixing.’ Among broad measures outlined, Obama wants to see a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the promotion of renewable energy while aiming to hit a 17% cut in carbon emissions recorded in 2005 by the end of this decade. He also took the brave decision to bypass a Congress stuck in stalemate to issue an executive memo to the Environmental protection Agency (EPA)calling for new rules for power plants to limit GHG emissions. The transportation sector has seen calls for further increased fuel economy standards for heavy duty trucks, with the plan also stating ‘biofuels have an important role to play in increasing our energy security, fostering rural economic development and reducing GHG emissions from this sector’. The action plan also reaffirms the Obama administration’s support of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and points to investment by the government into research and development for next-generation biofuels. The Advanced Ethanol Council (AEC) says the advanced ethanol industry stands behind the Obama administration in its effort to combat climate change. ‘The President is right to identify the renewable fuel standard and existing federal regulations as critical to the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector,’ states AEC executive director Brooke Coleman. ‘Pound for pound, advanced ethanol is the most carbon reductive alternative to gasoline in the world and the RFS is driving the commercial deployment of our industry.’ Furthermore, the action plan informs that the US has more than doubled electrical generation from renewable sources during Obama’s first term, and he hopes to do the same again by 2020. To help achieve that target, the Department of the Interior has been directed to approve 10GW of new renewable capacity by 2020. The plan also notes the Department of Defense is committed to deploying 3GW of renewable energy on military installations by 2025, including biomass. ‘There are two major areas where this administration’s aid can make a big difference for the biomass industry,’ Bob Cleaves, president of the Biomass Power Association, was quoted as saying. ‘The first would be a commitment to the use of federal lands for renewable energy production and, secondly, a confirmation of biomass’ value as a renewable energy source.’ Federal agencies are also setting a new goal to reach 100MW of installed renewable capacity across the federally subsidized housing stock by 2020. – See more at: http://www.bioenergy…h.CWQL39Nk.dpuf Continue reading
Unilever And Nestlé Join Aid Charities To Call For Biofuel Curbs
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2023d3e6-ceae-11e2-ae25-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2W6Bin3bz By Andrew Bowman ©Eyevine Unilever and Nestlé have joined development non-governmental organisations in calling on David Cameron to use the Group of Eight presidency to press for an end to the use of biofuels made from food crops. In a letter to Downing Street, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the Nestlé chairman, and Paul Polman, the Unilever chief executive, say agri-biofuels are “exacerbating global hunger”, with many varieties “worse for climate change than the fossil fuels they were meant to replace”. The letter, co-signed by ActionAid, Oxfam, and WWF, urges the UK to back a European Commission proposal for a 5 per cent cap on the use of agri-biofuels in the EU’s overall consumption of transport fuel. International development charities have long criticised EU biofuel policy, with ActionAid researchers estimating that foodstuffs converted to fuel by G8 members each year would be sufficient to feed 441m people. Concerns about the impact on commodity prices are shared by the two food multinationals, who say that biofuel mandates in EU and G8 countries are affecting their ability to make affordable products. In a statement, Unilever said: “The development of a new generation of biofuels which do not compete with food crops is essential.” The companies have stepped up their lobbying efforts in advance of the mid-June G8 summit in Northern Ireland and a meeting of the EU’s energy council on Friday to discuss the European Commission’s proposals. On Saturday, Mr Cameron will host Nutrition for Growth, an international summit, and a meeting of the New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition, an initiative launched by President Barack Obama at last year’s G8 summit to spur investment in African agribusiness. The EU renewable energy directive set a target of sourcing 10 per cent of all transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020, with much of this expected to come from biofuels. As well as the 5 per cent cap, the European Commission’s proposals released in October include environmental reporting obligations to account for carbon sinks destroyed by farmland expansion, and the promotion of “second generation” non-food biofuels. This week, the UK parliament’s international development committee said in a report that Britain should revise the country’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation to remove support for agri-biofuels, and push for similar reforms in the EU. The commission’s proposals have provoked angry responses from European biofuel producers, however, and on Tuesday the UK’s Renewable Energy Association said it “would mean the destruction of thousands of jobs, see millions of pounds of investment squandered and increase the cost of meeting renewable energy targets”. Continue reading
Commission Repeats Calls For Carbon Market Reform As Surplus Allowances Double
The number of surplus carbon permits under the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) doubled to two billion last year, the European Commission has announced. 21 May 2013 Topics Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said that the figures for 2012 underlined the need for urgent action to address the “supply-demand imbalance” under the struggling scheme. “The good news is that emissions declined again in 2012,” she said. “The bad news is that the supply-demand imbalance has further worsened in large part due to a record use of international credits.” “At the start of phase 3, we see a surplus of almost two billion allowances. These facts underline the need for the European Parliament and Council to act swiftly on back-loading,” she said. The European Parliament rejected a proposal by the European Commission to ‘backload’ a number of allowances under the scheme , as a temporary measure to address falling prices and lack of demand, last month. The proposal will be refined by the Parliament’s Environmental Committee, before returning to Parliament for a new vote next month. The EU ETS was established in 2005 and was the first major emissions trading scheme in the world. Phase 3 began on 1 January 2013, and runs until 2020. Under the scheme there is a cap on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from prescribed energy intensive installations. Installations must purchase GHG emissions allowances, called European Union Allowances (EUAs), which represent the right to emit or discharge a specific volume of emissions in line with national allocation plans. Operators of installations must hold EUAs equal to, or more than, total emissions at the end of the EU ETS year and those with excess allowances can ‘bank’ them or trade with those who need to buy more allowances to comply with emissions limits. The European Commission’s proposals would see 900 million allowances that would otherwise have been made available for auction between 2013 and 2015 transferred to later in the third phase of the EU ETS. By doing this, the Commission hopes to address the build-up in allowances caused by reduced industrial activity during the economic downturn. The price of allowances is currently below €4 per tonne according to Thomson Reuters Point Carbon – well below a historical average of €30 per tonne. According to the Commission’s figures, the number of surplus allowances rose from around 950 million at the end of 2011 to almost two billion by the end of 2012. This was due to a “combination” of the use of international credits, auctioned allowances from earlier phases of the scheme and remaining free allowances granted to new entrants to the scheme. Since 2008, the EU ETS has allowed installations to use international emissions reduction credits generated under the Kyoto Protocol to offset part of their emissions. Compliance with the rules of the scheme was “high” in 2012, according to the Commission. Less than 1% of participating installations did not surrender allowances to cover their 2012 emissions by the deadline of 30 April 2013, while aircraft operators responsible for over 98% of 2012’s aviation emissions had also fulfilled their responsibilities under the scheme. This year, aviation emissions fell under the EU ETS for the first time; however aircraft operators were given the option to limit reporting to only those flights within Europe. Environmental law expert Eluned Watson of Pinsent Masons said previously that backloading was merely a “quick fix” for the EU ETS, but that more time would be needed to put together a longer term reform package. ” Urgent action is required, backed by clear legislative support, to structurally reform the EU ETS and to rebalance the supply and demand of allowances in the EU ETS market, ” she said, as prices fell to a record low of €2.81 a tonne at the start of this year. “Although the backloading proposal is very much a ‘quick fix’, reactionary measure, it is clear that longer term structural reform will take time, with changes unlikely to be in place until 2017 at the earliest,” she said. Continue reading
